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Oracle9i Database introduced Real Application Clusters (RAC), which was a successor to Oracle Parallel Server. Oracle Database 10g offers several RAC-related improvements, including:
Portable Clusterware
Rolling upgrades
Cluster Ready Services
Enhancements to the Database Configuration Assistant and the Database Upgrade Assistant
Enhanced recovery parallelism on multiple CPU systems
A new parameter, gcs_server_processes
First introduced on limited platforms in Oracle9i Database, Portable Clusterware is now available on most Oracle Database 10g platforms. Clusterware provides clustering services for the Oracle Database 10g RAC configuration. Prior to Oracle Database 10g, most RAC configurations required that third-party clusterware software be purchased and installed. Now, in Oracle Database 10g, Oracle offers clusterware that runs on all platforms, eliminating the need for vendor-offered clusterware. Oracle's Portable Clusterware offers a number of features:
Infiniband high-speed network support
Simplified client installs
Simplified cluster installs
Oracle Database 10g provides for limited rolling upgrades for RAC clusters through the use of the opatch utility. These patches must be certified by Oracle to be used within a rolling upgrade scheme. There are a number of restrictions on what patches may be used as rolling upgrade patches, such as the fact that the patch cannot impact